What Happens When A Food Blogger Admits To An Eating Disorder

On a recent night in her New York City apartment, Jordan Younger found herself frantically calling her web designer and buying up new domain names. The 23-year-old food blogger was in a state. She’d just received anonymous threats saying that someone would kill her if she refused to change her current blog name, The Blonde Vegan.

“I had been warned by a friend that that might happen,” she says. “I was prepared but still shocked.”

The threats were in response to the fact that Younger had recently revealed in a June 23 blog post that she was no longer vegan. After ultimately admitting that she had orthorexia, a total obsession with eating healthy that’s categorized as an eating disorder, she made the personal decision to transition away from the lifestyle.

But her public profile, which hinged on her vegan identity, meant that the transition would be a tumultuous one, played out in the vicious land of Internet commenting, infused with complicated vegan politics and her fans’—and critics’—ideas about what she should eat to get healthy.